Holidays & Broken Trust

Holidays for many people are fraught with mixed messages and mixed emotions. Traditions can trap us in activities which are negative, force us to interact with people who hurt us, put us in vulnerable situations and tell us how to feel so we can fail when we don’t. Yay! Pass the eggnog. This can be…

When Is It Your Turn?

‘Tis the season for the Santa Clause wish list. The collated and prioritized list of what we want and/or expect from our nearest and dearest. It’s also a time for judgement. It’s subtle and not so subtle, but it’s there and everyone feels it. Santa has a naughty or nice list, everyone is trying hastily…

The Test of Time

There is a cachet placed on traditions which stand the test of time. Being linear beings who live relatively brief lives, we have a reverence for things which outlast us. This includes holiday traditions. They connect us to our past, to loved ones near and far, to the generations who have gone before us, to…

Happy or Coping?

wIt can seem like New Year’s is not so much a celebration of the new year, but a victory lap.  “Yay!!! We made it through another grueling Holiday season!” We talk about the new year and making resolutions, but in reality we are simply in shock and trying to recover from what we work so…

Balancing

Somewhere along the way our notion of balance becomes about stillness.  That balance is about perfect measures bringing everything to a point where nothing moves. It’s the essence of perfection, to be perfectly balanced in a stillness that proves everything is exactly equal, measured, compared, in exacting relationship to each other. Yet nothing could be…

Lessons & Choices

On the one hand it’s important to evaluate a situation which has occurred. To look back at what elements came together in order to facilitate it, what your part was in it, and what lesson there is to be learned from it. This is part of what it means to live an examined life. To…